~ Landing Not Required…

Monthly Archives: July 2012

Our second to last day in Montevideo was July 6th, the day before my birthday. I was excited because I would be spending my birthday in two countries as we were taking the ferry the next day! So to celebrate my birthday, we decided to go to one of the many theaters in Montevideo. We had a few to choose from but we decided on a musical / dance show that we saw advertised when we went to the Subte exhibition. Some of the plays in other theaters also looked interesting but we figured we wouldn’t understand most of what they were saying given that the accent and speed of talking had been so difficult already!

The show started out with a woman from Chile playing her guitar and singing happy type songs (again, the songs were in Spanish and a bit difficult to understand!). She invited a couple of ‘guests’ up – one played a beat on her wooden chair and another beat-boxed! The next two acts were completely different – one had a rashtafarian type vibe and the other was a bunch teens that were rapping – part of the U.R.U – Uruguay Rap Underground. The point of the show was to give women performers a voice so most of the main performers were women – including the rapping teens.

After the show, we went to Bar Fun Fun (pronounced phoon-phoon) to celebrate the start of my birthday at midnight 🙂 We were pleasantly surprised with the tango show and live band (we had no idea they would be there). The tango was absolutely gorgeous and lustrous – love it!

The next day, we walked around a bit more before our ferry was supposed to leave. When it was time, we took a city bus to the terminal and were incredibly confused for a bit but finally figured out we were supposed to wait in a line to board the Buquebus. The bus was really comfortable and took us from Montevideo to Colonia. Colonia is supposed to be a place to visit in its own right but since we were forced to book our tickets in Lima, we didn’t get a chance to see Colonia. From Colonia, we boarded the ferry to Buenos Aires. This thing was AMAZING – it had four levels. The first level had a duty free store and video games. The second level was for the general public and had a café, bars and seating areas where the seats reclined all the way back. The third and fourth floors were VIP and super VIP floors (we aren’t that special though!) that basically had nicer seats and seating areas. There was even wifi on the ferry! The ticket from Montevideo to Buenos Aires was $46 each and took about seven hours total.

We intended to fly from Lima, Peru to Buenos Aires, Argentina, but found out two days before the flight that the $160 per person “entrance fee” into Argentina only applies if you fly into Buenos Aires airport. If you come in some other way, there is no fee. So, we paid a minimal change fee and re-booked our flight to go to Montevideo, Uruguay instead. From there, it’s just a short ferry ride into Argentina. We had already thought of going to Uruguay anyway, so it worked perfectly.

Side note: Our flight from Lima, via Panama City (because that’s going in the right direction!), was through Copa Airlines. We got to the airport two hours early and tried to check-in. The airline proceeded to tell us that we had to show proof on onward travel out of Uruguay. So generally, most countries have rules that do ask for proof of onward travel, though we’ve never been asked for it but we know this is a general rule. And it is the airline’s responsibility to confirm this because if they do not, they are responsible for flying us back. So we told them we were planning on taking the ferry out from Montevideo to Buenos Aires and they said they would need to see a ticket. Flustered but acceding that this is a rule, we went and found the internet café at the airport and booked a ferry ticket online via Buquebus. We go back and show the guy our ticket. He asks his supervisor to confirm and she says no, it needs to be a ticket by the same means of travel which we entered – by air. So even though all Uruguay was going to care about was that we were going to Argentina, the airline now wanted confirmation of our FLIGHT back to the US or a flight out of Uruguay to somewhere else. This is after we had asked if the ferry ticket would suffice and were told yes. They basically told us there was no way we could get on the flight unless they had proof of a flight (even though all Uruguay requires is proof of onward travel but whatever) –and we had 15 minutes before check-in was going to close. So we run back to the internet café and book a ticket using my Star Alliance miles (knowing that I could cancel within 24 hours) from Buenos Aires to the US. We run back and show the supervisor lady our reservation and she proceeds to actually look it up in the system – like we had time to doctor a ticket or that immigration in Uruguay would look it up. Stupid chic (I have more expletive names for her in my head). We were finally allowed to get our boarding passes. And of course, no one asked us about anything at immigration. Frustrating!

We landed in Uruguay around midnight on July 4th. Our hostel had told us to take two different buses from the airport. Figuring the bus system didn’t run that late (we were wrong), or that we’d have to wait a long time (we were wrong), or that it would be complicated (probably still true), we opted for a taxi, which turned out to be about $65. The two buses would’ve been about $4 total. The only working ATM at the airport had a limit of $200 in the local currency (Uruguayan peso, about 21 to 1 USD), so we already used up 1/3 of it on taxi fare, before even being there for one hour. That was a sign of things to come… Uruguay was definitely a change from the great prices in Asia and the moderate prices of Peru! The other thing we discovered on the taxi ride is that the accent in Uruguay was crazy different from Peru or what we’re used to (Mexican Spanish) as we couldn’t understand anything the cabbie was telling us! But the accent was so gorgeous – like a song!

Uruguay is a very modern country with great infrastructure. It’s one of the few countries in South America where the tap water is safe enough to drink, even for foreign tourists. Some of the main industry is international exports of beef, dairy products, leather and wine. In the capital city of Montevideo, the buses are privately-owned, but fares are low, and the buses are always coming down the street, every minute. There are a ton of museums, theaters, plazas, parks, and other places to see/visit/hang out. There’s a wide boardwalk called La Rambla (actually concrete) that runs alongside the beach all around the city. They comb the beach daily, keeping it looking neat and clean.

We had about three nights and three days in Montevideo. The first night, we got in late and slept in the next day. In the afternoon, we decided to walk around the center part of the city. One of the most famous plazas in Montevideo is Plaza Independencia. Almost all of the plazas here have a statue in the middle – unfortunately, the statue here had scaffolding around it so we didn’t really get to see it. But this building amused us – It looks like a robot or something! Also, some of the major streets here are named after famous dates in history (like the date the Constitution was adopted, Avenido 18 de Julio) which I think is a great idea!

Cool looking building on Plaza Independencia – the top looks like a robot!

Plaza Independencia

We continued our stroll down wide avenues and come across another plaza, Plaza Fabini. We sat awhile, taking in the sun like several others were doing around the plaza. We happened to notice a sign for an exposition at the Subte so went to it. It was a free exhibition of portraits of different women – Soy by Susette Kok. I really enjoyed viewing all the photos – some were really powerful and then reading some of their stories in a coffee table book they had lying around.

Fountain in Plaza Fabini

The Subte exposition

The next day, we figured out the local bus system which is really extensive and spent the day walking around La Rambla in a different part of town. The beach was decent (not the crystal blue ones we’d been accustomed to in Asia) but nice enough. The boardwalk was really pleasant, though it was cold! That night, we went to an Irish pub nearby with a live rock band singing both English and Spanish songs. We enjoyed the irony of eating Mexican fajitas at an Irish bar listening to some American songs drinking Cuba Libres in a bar in Uruguay 🙂

La Rambla

View of the city streets

La Rambla

There’s not much to ‘see’ per say in Montevideo but we liked walking around the city and admiring the buildings, both old and new, and the numerous plazas.

While we decided that we probably couldn’t afford to go to the Galapagos Islands, we went to Peru’s answer to the Galapagos Islands – Islas Ballestas. We took a two hour drive from Huacachina and hopped onto a boat and went to the islands that are COVERED by birds – I was really scared we would get sh*t on! But along the way, we also saw other cool wildlife!

Our last foray into the desert to see sand dunes was in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India. Our next foray came at a stop in the town of Huacachina, an oasis in the desert – the dunes in Jaisalmer have nothing on these! A guy at our hostel mentioned the dune buggy tour in the early evening, so we signed up and were greeted by a massive monster of a vehicle.

The first indication that something was about to be different was when an old man, balding with scraggly white hair, got in the drivers seat. He then proceeded to race through the three blocks of the town making fast turns into the desert. And then the fun began. He would drive up a fairly steep incline, turn around near the top (so we all felt like the vehicle would roll over down the sand dune), and then race back down.

After driving through the desert with crazy guy, we got out and were handed sand-boards. We then rode down several dunes (mostly on our stomachs – once we tried standing up and tried riding down like a snow board – that didn’t work out so well – Rachel face planted and got a mouth full of sand and Samir couldn’t quite stay standing for more than a second!). The last dune was by far the funnest – a long crazy vertical and fast ride down – thrilling!

Overall, the dunes were gorgeous and going sandboarding and dune buggying through the dunes was probably one of our favorite experiences on our trip so far!

From Cuzco, we decided to take an overnight bus to Nazca. The “Cruz Del Sur” bus line was the most luxurious charter bus I’ve ever ridden on – leather seats that reclined, dinner & breakfast served on the bus by a stewardess, free Wifi wherever the bus could get a signal, movies on a screen (albeit dubbed in Spanish). I remember thinking how peculiar it was that the bus company screened our bags, checked our carry-ons, made us go through a detector, and even took a picture of us before we got on the bus. We had heard about security incidents on these long term bus tours – to compensate, the bus company monitors the bus for ‘unscheduled’ stops via GPS. I guess for that level of luxury, they have to take precautions. Rachel seemed to sleep fine, but by the time we got off the bus, she was feeling queasy.

Nazca is famous for having ancient geoglyphs – lines drawn in the desert, in the shape of various objects – a condor, a monkey, a tree, random trapezoids. The origin of the lines is unknown, though scholars put the lines at over 1,000 years old. Due to their size (some in excess of 300 feet long), it’s best to see them from a small plane.

The manager of our hotel indicated that the weather had been overcast the day before, so all flights over the Nazca desert had been canceled. It was a clear day, so take a flight today. Feeling queasy, Rachel opted to visit the lines from an observation tower. I took a flight later that day in a four-seater Cessna plane ($85/person). I remember asking if they had parachutes on board in case of some trouble – the pilot just laughed.

The flight seemed to go by so quickly. The pilots would point off in the distance, but the lines were a bit hard to make out. The desert has so many thousands of lines in it – some from tire tracks, but most probably from weather. My best shots:

By Rachel

After the bus ride from Cuzco, I was feeling dizzy so I figured it wouldn’t be a great idea to get on a small plane that would bank from side to side. So instead, I took a local bus (Soyuz) out to the “mirador” or looking tower to see a couple of the lines from the ground – the tree and the hands. I was surprised at how small they seemed but truly fascinated that they were still there and that it hadn’t been blown away or covered or ruined after all these years. The bus experience was also interesting – I told the driver Mirador but he forgot – luckily, he stopped at the observation tower to pick someone up and I was getting up to get out when he started going again – but I was able to tell him to stop and let me down! The bus ticket was 2 soles and the ticket to go up the little tower was another two soles. On the way back, I basically stood around waiting and hailed a bus going back towards Nazca for another 2 soles. After we saw the lines, we went to a Chifa (a Chinese and Peruvian fusion type restaurant – more Chinese though). There’s not much else to do in Nazca – apparently there is an observatory and a couple museums but we skipped those and enjoyed our dinner instead!

In the air

Random trapezoids

Monkey!

A condor, the most common symbol used to depict the Nazca Lines in tourist brochures

Cool spider

A tree of life, and the observation tower in the distance. We determined that I flew over the tower about five minutes before Rachel got there

A dinosaur? The pilot pointed it out, but said that no one knew what it was

View of the two hands from the ground – one hand has five fingers but the other only has four!

After our awesome visit to Machu Picchu, we took a train back to Ollantaytambo with the intention of staying there for a couple days to tour the Sacred Valley. However, once we got to Ollantaytambo (at night time), we weren’t really feeling the city – it was a small town which was set in a beautiful surrounding but was completely dead. So the next morning, we headed back to Cuzco and decided to take one of the tours from there instead (to take advantage of the rest of our boleto turistico – http://www.cosituc.com/).

Our Sacred Valley tour included the following stops:

1) Pisac – Here we went to the famous Pisac market. They are known for selling silver items (there is a silver mine close by) though they are equally known for selling fake stuff! We saw some beautiful silver jewelry, but alas, being on a budget, the only thing we sprung for were some warm alpaca socks 🙂

We got matching alpaca socks that mimic the Cuzco flag!

The cooler thing in Pisac were the Incan ruins at Pisaq. We went to an Incan village and saw some of the old buildings and an Incan cemetary. Unfortunately, because the Incans were buried with much of their possessions as they believed they would take these into their next life, when the Spaniards came, they robbed all the graves. We also learned that the astronomer was the most respected person in the village (his house was at the highest point of the mountain) and that he was so important because he predicted the weather and rain patterns. The site was also amazing because of the huge terraces that surrounded it. The Incans used each step in the terrace as a different site for cultivation and took advantage of the slight difference in climate and soil of each of the steps – so intelligent!

View of the Sacred Valley

Ruins of Pisaq

An Incan cemetary – holes in the side of the mountain

Beautiful agricultural terraces around Pisaq

View from Pisaq

2) Urubamba – another town in the Sacred Valley – we stopped here for a Peruvian lunch buffet, accompanied by some traditional Peruvian music.

Our lunch

Potatoes (they have over 100 varieties of potato and corn!) with some kind of mustard sauce

Postres!

Live music at lunch

3) Ollantaytambo – This was definitely a highlight of the Sacred Valley tour. Another feat of amazing architecture and design, the Incan ruins (built in the 15th century) have several steps of agricultural terraces, again allowing for cultivation at different temperatures. The terraces were made of cut stone rather than unfinished stone. From the terraces, you can see an image of an Incan profile carved into the mountain across from the ruins. One of the most interesting things is the Wall of the Monoliths which is part of the uncompleted Temple of the Sun. The stones of these walls are MASSIVE – each stone must have taken years to extract from the quarry, cut and polish and move to the site. The quarry was across the river in another mountain – supposedly it took 60 or so years just to erect these six stones. The guide that took us on our tour was a big follower of Incan ideology and he said this temple was important for him than Machu Picchu because of the religious aspects of the site and the obvious importance they put on building this Temple of the Sun.

view of storage structures from Ollantaytambo

Image of an Incan carved in the side of the mountain

Wall of the Monoliths with huge stones

Temple of the Sun

Temple of the Sun

Ollantaytambo

4) Chinceros – our last stop was supposed to be a Church or something in Chinceros; however, it was dark by the time we got there and instead we saw a demonstration of how the indigenous people dyed the wool (sheep, lamb or alpaca) and what materials they used.

Sample of dying wool

Different materials used for dying

We enjoyed the Sacred Valley tour, especially driving around and enjoying the amazing scenery. We were supposed to go see a couple of additional sites the next day but we slept in and were laze instead! Though we did go see one of the local art museums though this mostly had crafts, puppets and dolls – not super interesting for us.

When we first had our first sight of Machu Picchu, these were the thoughts going through my head and more. Admittedly, the only thing I knew about Machu Picchu was that it used to be an ancient Incan city and was re-discovered years after it had been cleared out. I knew nothing of the incredible foresight and engineering capabilities of the Incans, the fantastic setting in the mountains nor the religious significances of various parts of Machu Picchu. But in a way, I’m glad that I went in as a blank slate and was meaningfully surprised at all the tid-bits I learned along the way and could experience Machu Picchu truly for the first time in person.

The basics:

Machu Picchu, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, was built in the 15th century as an Incan estate for royalty and religious attribution the Incan gods. In theory anyway. By the time it was discovered externally by American Hiram Bingham in 1911, the Incans had long abandoned the ancient city due to the Spanish conquests in the 16th century. It is located near the apex of the mountain Machu Picchu and is built to meld with the mountains topography so it seems like it’s one with the mountain. This remote location in the mountains made it difficult to access (the Incans had enough foresight to have the ability to close off their trails leading to the city if necessary) and the altitude was supposedly an homage to the sun, a symbol of religious significance for the Incans. I’ll save the rest of the story for the pictures!

The practicalities:

I’m sure there are different ways to go see Machu Picchu and tour companies can also arrange this all for you (including the Inca Trail which is a four day hike to Machu Picchu and should be booked at least six to nine months ahead of time so we didn’t do it) – this is the route we took from Lima:

1) Take a flight from Lima to Cuzco. The cheapest we found booking about two weeks ahead was $147 on Star Peru in June 2012.

You can also take a bus, though if you have the time to take the bus route, suggest stopping in one or all of the following places to break up the otherwise 24 hour bus ride (and not a pleasant one through the winding mountains, though the views are great):

Huacachina (via Ica)– amazing sand dunes – fun spot to go sand boarding and dune buggy riding – pretty cheap as well – we paid 30 soles for about 2-3 hours where we did both through our hostel, Bananas (loved!). About 5 hours from Lima – take a local bus (Soyuz or Peru Bus) and it’s only about 22 soles to Ica and then 5 soles by taxi to Huacachina (see our post on Huachina).

Nazca lines – see the mysterious Nazca lines that were drawn by who knows? Only 2.5 hours from Ica. Again, take a local bus company – 11 soles. The flight over the Nazca lines was about $85 per person in July 2012 (see our post on Nazca). Recommend staying a night just in case you have flight delays and not plan on passing through.

Arequipa – we didn’t visit Arrequipa but that’s where most people were heading if they were going from Lima to Cuzco. I think it’s about 8-9 hours by bus – definitely take Cruz del Sur for this one – super comfortable buses with wifi and meals included. Worth the splurge for such a long trip. Spend a couple days and go see Colca Canyon.

We basically did this route in reverse on the way back from Cuzco (skipping Arequipa) because we wanted to be in Cuzco for the Inti Raymi festival. From Cuzco, most people that did the above route were headed to Puno and Lake Titicaca and then into Bolivia via Copacabana.

2) Once you get to Cuzco, give yourself a couple days to acclimatize because the altitude makes it hard to breathe! Take a couple of the city tours or tours of the Sacred Valley or just enjoy Cuzco J

3) Buy a train ticket to Aguas Calientes. There are only three trains from Cuzco and they are more expensive than the ones from Ollantaytambo which are perfectly nice. To get to Ollantaytambo, just ask your hostel where the minibus pickups are – they have these mini buses that wait until they are full to go (they coincide well with the train timings) and cost 10 soles per person in June 2012. They are kind of in a random alley so make sure you ask someone! Our roundtrip train ticket was $95 per person, booked online at Peru Rail’s website (you have to have a Verified by Visa or Mastercard SecureCode to book online). Recommend booking the train ahead of time if you can to be able to get the schedule you want, but met plenty of people that waited til they got to Cuzco to book it. We left in the afternoon from Ollantaytambo so we could enjoy the view, went to Machu Picchu the next day and came back on the evening train.

4) Buy tickets for Machu Picchu – again, advise buying these online ahead of time but the site only takes Verified by Visa cards. Pain! If you don’t plan to climb Huayna Picchu, then you can probably wait until Cuzco to get tickets. If you want to climb HP, try book ahead of time or be really flexible on what days you can go! The website is: http://www.machupicchu.gob.pe/ – It’s a little confusing – you first reserve your tickets and then you have six hours to pay for them. Use the reservation number and go to the payments section to pay for them. We didn’t have the Verified by Visa so we ended up having to go the Minister of Culture office in Cuzco (Av. de la Cultura 238 – have to take a taxi from Plaza de Armas area) to buy them because we didn’t want to wait until we got to Aguas Calientes since we were getting there in the evening. Tickets to see only Machu Picchu: 128 soles per person.

5) Buy bus tickets from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu – I believe you can only buy these in Aguas Calientes – we bought the night before from the bus station as we wanted to go early the next morning and didn’t want to wait in line. The bus ticket is $17 roundtrip. You can also buy one way and walk but not sure how to do that! Also, note that there are no taxis in AC – make sure you arrange with your hostel to pick you up at the train station or you know where you are going!

6) Get to Machu Picchu and you go straight thru – make sure you have your tickets (not just the reservation) and passport! Also, take some snacks and water because the stuff there is expensive! There are guides outside offering tours – not sure how good they are – we had our own guidebook on Machu Picchu which was nice because we could enjoy it at our own pace instead of being whisked around in a tour.

7) The best time to see Machu Picchu is first thing in the morning (like 6am) which we intended to do. However, we couldn’t fall asleep the night before, so we ended up sleeping in and going around 8. Still got there before most of the tours though! All in all, we saw all of Machu Picchu at a very leisurely pace in about four hours.

So in total, the cost for the two of us to see MP was:

Flight to Cuzco: $294

Bus to Ollantaytambo: $8

Train to AC: $190

Bus to MP: $34

Tickets to MP: $99

Total: $625

Not including lodging or food of course – just the logistics! Totally worth it though!

Side note: We hated Aguas Calientes – the town is a tourist trap and the restaurants were frustrating (ask before hand if there is a service charge – they claim that they don’t make a wage and only receive the service charge which isn’t true!).

Our journey to South America began very tamely with a day of rest in Lima. After bouncing around the States for three weeks, and a last minute packing day (we were WAY less prepared for South America than for Asia!), by the time we got to Lima, we just wanted to pass out and relax. So we literally only saw Lima for the couple hours that we walked around to get dinner. But, it was fun trying to remember our Spanish as we tried getting around.

The only thing we planned before going to South America was our trip to Machu Picchu as we heard that tickets could be a problem. It just so happened that a huge annual festival was taking place in Cuzco (where you pretty much have to go to get to Machu Picchu) on June 24, Inti Raymi, so we planned our visit to Machu Picchu around this as well.

Cuzco is a beautiful city (the capital of the departamento, similar to a state or province, of Cuzco) that is an interesting blend of the Spanish colonial times and its deep-rooted history as the capital of the Incan empire. It’s also has an altitude of 3,400 meters making it super hard to breathe at times while walking uphill! Luckily, mate de coca (herbal tea made of coca leaves) was readily available at our hostel when we checked in and pretty much everywhere thereafter. The coca tea (coca leaves contain just a smidge of what is eventually refined into cocaine) supposedly helps calm the symptoms of altitude sickness.

There are a few things that stand out in my mind as I think about Cuzco. First, the beautiful architecture – the colonial style buildings, in some places built over the old Incan stone-laid walls, the wide cobblestone alleys and of course the charming plazas in various parts of the city. Second, all the cute cafes and restaurants that line the streets – one of our faves was Mama Oli’s in Plaza San Blas – a little café with five tables, cheap drinks and yummy chicha morada (a juice made from purple corn). And finally, the view. The city is nestled in the Andes Mountains that provide dramatic, awe-inspiring bulging landscapes. And the sky… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sky so perfectly, so pristinely blue. It’s the first thing I noticed every day that I walked around – how vividly beautifully blue the sky is, with almost cliché puffy white clouds dotting its expanse.

As I mentioned before, we were in Cuzco a couple days before Inti Raymi, a huge annual festival honoring the Sun god, Inti. The days leading up to Inti Raymi are very celebratory and we were able to see a huge parade in which the different departamentos of Peru and institutions (like the police) of Cuzco came out to honor and celebrate the festival. I loved seeing all the different signs, costumes and dances of the various groups of people that paraded up Avenida El Sol and into the main Plaza del Armas.

The second day we were in Cuzco, we arranged to go on a city tour to see some of the attractions around Cuzco, mainly Incan ruins. Side note: pretty much the only way to see the attractions is to buy the tourist ticket (boleto turistico) that costs a whopping 130 soles and is valid for ten days. It gives entrance to most of the attractions around the city of Cuzco and the nearby Sacred Valley. Our city tour (15-20 soles per person) included a visit to Qoricancha (Qoricancha is not included in the tourist ticket but the museum at Qoricancha is), Saqsayhuaman, Q’enqo, Puka Pukara and Tambomachay. Qoricancha, or Temple of the Sun, was somewhat interesting – it used to be the most important temple in Cuzco for the Incan empire and was supposedly covered in sheets of gold until it was basically looted by the invading Spaniards (this was pretty much a recurring theme – i.e., such and such place was built or being built until the Spanish invasion and then the Incans heard the Spanish were coming and ran off to the jungle for protection). The Spanish built Church Santo Domingo on top of the Incan temple, though over time, the site has experienced at least three major earthquakes, resulting in much of the cathedrals’ demolishment but the old, original Incan stonework remains due to its solid infrastructure of tightly locked stones. Although we visited a few different temples within the Qoricancha (dedicated to other important gods like rainbows, thunder, lightning and the moon), they now just look like rooms with huge stone walls since pretty much everything has been looted, rebuilt or destroyed. Qoricancha was also the main astronomical observatory for the Incas. We were told in a later tour that the astronomer was one of the most respected people in the community as he was responsible for reading the weather patterns and determining when it may rain, an essential for the agrarian based Incas.

The other memorable stop on the tour was Saqsayhuaman (though now the only way I can even remotely remember how to say this is our tour guide jokingly saying it shouldn’t be confused with a “sexy woman”). Saqsayhuaman is one of the important Incan ruins, and is a series of walls built with huge interlocking stone pieces without the use of mortar. Cuzco is supposedly in the shape of a puma with Saqsayhuaman representing the head. It is used today to celebrate the annual Inti Raymi festival. Sawsayhuaman is about 300 m above Cuzco and offers a gorgeous view of the city, including the Cristo Blanco (White Christ) statue that lords over the city. Unfortunately, the rest of the places on the tour were far less interesting /memorable.

We ended the evening by going to the Qosqo (the Quechua word for Cuzco) de Arte Nativo, which puts on traditional musical dance performances (LOVED!).

Finally, the days in Cuzco during June are gorgeous, sunny and in the 70s during the day. At night, however, it got rather cold and since the hostels and buildings are generally made from cement, there is no real insulation so our rooms got pretty frigid. At least we had a portable heater on the second night at our hostel, Quechua Hostel (nice place, really friendly staff – a few minutes walk from the Plaza del Armas – request a heater!) and nice hot water! But it made it hard for these Texans to want to get out of the room to do stuff at night!

Santa Clara Church and street market below

Arch entering Plaza San Francisco

Plaza del Armas

Plaza San Blas

Gorgeous day at Plaza del Armas

Playing with the color accent setting on our new camera at Plaza del Armas

Dinner overlooking Plaza del Armas

Our first pisco sour 🙂

Choclo con queso (huge corn!)

Dance performance

A deer being hunted as part of the dance performance

Parade before Inti Raymi

Parade before Inti Raymi

Puka Pukara

Q’enko

Outside of Qorikancha

Women dressed in traditional indigenous clothing

Sacsayhuaman terraces

Solidly built wall at Sacsayhuaman – survived at least three huge earthquakes!

View from Sacsayhuaman (and the Cristo Blanco)

Beautiful view of Cuzco from Sacsayhuaman

Huge stones were interlocked to build much of the walls of this fortress

The ‘fountain of youth’ at Tambomachay – don’t drink from it though! You’ll get the runs! The tradition is to wash your face with the water!